“WHAT SEEMS LIKE AN INTERLUDE NOW/COULD BE THE BEGINNING OF LOVE“: On Christmas, I was speaking with someone who described a certain Christian response to the world as “indifference.” This distance from the events of the “stirring world” shows itself most clearly in law and politics: If they outlaw our practices in Pennsylvania, (shrug) no matter, we can move, or we can operate underground, it’s been done before. I asked whether this perspective took the attitude, “The blood of the... Read more

SECOND SERVINGMAN: Why, then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers. FIRST SERVINGMAN: Let us have war, say I. It exceeds peace as far as day does night. It’s sprightly, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men. SECOND: ‘Tis so; and as war, in some sort,... Read more

HILARIOUS. “The Two Towers: Condensed Version.” I forget where I got this. GANDALF: Hey, kids. Miss me? ARAGORN: Gandalf! You’re alive! LEGOLAS: I almost had a facial expression from the joy of it! …LEGOLAS: This is going to be most unpleasant. Hundreds of people will die. ARAGORN: Thank you, Captain Obvious. Read more

THE RACE SERIES IS NOW COMPLETE. Please exit slowly through the door at your right. It’s bedtime for Bonzo over here. Meanwhile, in other parts of the forest… Gene Healy’s anti-war case is the one to beat. Crisp and clear. Worth your time. Some comments are here. Junius adds his two cents to the race stuff–start here and scroll down a bit for more. Amy Welborn tells a story from the past to explain her approach to the abuser-priest scandals.... Read more

RACE IX: THE RECOVERY OF FIRE. So in that big anti-affirmative action post, I concluded by noting that contemporary defenses of affirmative action totally lack the sense of hope and vigor that imbues descriptions of the King era. And I said that we could get that fire back, but that we’d have to redirect our thinking about race. Here’s my disorganized game plan for that redirection. It’s in several parts–you’ll know when you hit the end because you’ll be back... Read more

We need to do two things at once: a) Get beyond the black/white “American dilemma.” That’s probably been my biggest failing so far with this series–there’s no real sense of the whole “Mississippi Masala” shtik here, the wild efflorescence of American cultures and racial categories and category-breakers. We’re addicted to black and white. Possibly that’s because we don’t quite know how to talk about the deep links, similarities, and persistent differences between native-born black and white communities? I mean, we... Read more

b) Having noted that there are all kinds of funky colors and cultures in this country, it’s also necessary to acknowledge that black Americans are, statistically speaking, losing out. Then, we can talk about why so many black children are growing up fatherless, black men are filling prisons, and black students are dropping out of college. What we need to do to address problems that stunt many black lives are things we need to do anyway, things we would need... Read more

2) But let’s not pretend that only white people have imaginations! Everyone needs a greater sense of what’s possible. This came up in the stuff above about marriage; now let’s apply it to entrepreneurship. This is why stories like the Pizza-Ria! kids (“It’s fresh! It’s good! It’s from the ‘hood”) are so important–they spark the imagination. While we’re on the subject of kids’ books, can I recommend The Toothpaste Millionaire? TTM tells the story of two friends who realize that... Read more

RACE VIIIa: JANE GALT STEPS INTO THE RING: More on the employment study. Read more

RACE VIII: (MORE) CRITICISM OF THAT EMPLOYMENT STUDY: I gave a long, rambly description of a recent study attempting to measure anti-black discrimination in employment, here. Reader John Brewer thinks I was way too easy on the study; he makes a lot of good points. Everything that follows is by him. It is difficult to take this study seriously, even by the standards of what passes for publishable social-science research. (There is also an interesting-at-least-to-me lurking question about the morality... Read more